Rumour mills target women, doctors say henna is safe

After people from the Northeast, it was the turn of Muslim women to get scared unnecessarily by rumours — that too on the day of Ramzan.

Hundreds of women thronged various hospitals in Chennai, Vellore, Coimbatore and many other places in the State in the wee hours of Monday after rumours spread that mehendi, which they applied on their body on the festival day, has led to the death of two persons in Bangalore.

Though police tried to convince the worried people that no fatalities have been reported, it was not enough to pacify them. A miniscule number of women indeed developed allergies arising out of overexposure to chemicals in the commercially-made mehendi and were treated at various hospitals.

Health experts told Express that the condition was common as the commercially made mehendi contained a certain amount of chemicals, including sulphur. Such cases were usual at the hospitals and are treated with anti-allergens, they said.

Dr Susan Abraham, Head, Department of Dermatology at CMC in Vellore, pointed out that natural mehendi is harmless. “Commercially available mehendi has chemicals such as paraphenylenediamine (PPD), a dye material (normally used in hair dying) to deepen the colour of mehendi. Occasionally this could harm the skin and cause a burning sensation, redness, itching and blistering, which if treated generally subsides within two days,” she said.

In Chennai, police and hospital officials had a hard time pacifying the crowd that gathered at healthcare facilities seeking urgent medical intervention.